KIRKUS REVIEW

In this novel, Anderson-Minshall
(co-author: Queerly Beloved, 2014,
etc.) tells the stories of
a transgender man, the son he adopts, and the daughter he gave up.

Flint Douglas, an intersex teenager,
counts himself blessed to have found Coyote “Ki” Douglas, who adopts him after
he experiences years of abuse from foster parents. Ki’s compassionate act
gets Flint off the streets and into a protective environment, where he’s
allowed to grow into his body and emotions. This comfortable hideaway
begins to crumble, however, when Ki is informed that his biological daughter,
Brooke, has become ill while serving in Iraq and needs a kidney transplant.
While reconnecting with his daughter and traveling with his adopted son, Ki’s past
is revealed. Flint learns about his father’s origins, the abuse he
suffered as a child, and the salvation he eventually found from “a well-dressed
middle-aged gay man.” The more Ki tells Flint about his life, the more the
teen relates to him. In the end, Ki passes on his wisdom and knowledge to the
young man, who believes the key to keeping Ki’s lessons alive is sharing a fable
of the Salmon People, which Ki used to tell to schoolchildren.
Anderson-Minshall manages to juggle several major political topics, including
war, green living, and even video game violence. Some of the plotline involving
gender identity brings to mind Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, and the Iraq-set war scenesare reminiscent of the Afghanistan-set 2007 book Lone Survivor.There’s a particularly significant anti-war
theme; at one point, Flint thinks that American combat soldiers fighting had no
guilt about their actions, which “made them far from innocent, and he kind of
thought they deserved to get hurt or at least become shell-shocked.” Anderson-Minshall’s descriptions, however, can be overly thorough
and misplaced: An early chapter is spent distinguishing Sunni from Shi‘ite
Muslims and the treatment of Iraqi Muslims versus Native Americans, with Brooke
as an incidental detail in the background, thinking that she’s dying. And
despite all the political dialogue in this book, there’s little real
conversation for the first 40 pages or so.

An unevenly written
anti-war, gender-fluid, and environmentally
conscious tale.

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